Anthony Arthur

I think it's essential to stress that I come at Upton
Sinclair not as a social activist, like most who have
previously written about him, but as a writer and a teacher
of American literature. I've tried to address the various
questions I've been asked about Sinclair, or that I think
should be asked, in the linked Word document above, "Why
Sinclair Matters," including how and why I came to write
about him.

My career has always combined writing with reading and
teaching--a bit like Sinclair's in that modest respect,
since I think of him as a teacher. I attended Penn State for
two years after graduating from Sharon High School, in
western Pennsylvania, in 1954. I then spent three years in
the army, during which I was trained at the Army Language
School in Monterey, California (now the Defense Language
Institute) for a year as a Korean linguist. After graduating
from Allegheny College in 1960, I worked for a year as a
newspaper reporter in southern Arizona. I returned to Penn
State for my MA in English in 1961 and then worked as a
business writer in New York.

I began teaching English at a community college on Long
Island in 1964. In 1970 I got my Ph. D. in English at State
University of Stony Brook, and took a position at California
State University, Northridge, as it was renamed in 1972.
During my academic career I was a Fulbright scholar in
Hungary, an exchange professor in Germany, and Distinguished
Visiting Professor of English at the U. S. Air Force
Academy. I retired in 2002 to concentrate on writing full
time. I’ve written four earlier non-fiction books, published
by St. Martin's Press, and co-authored a book of essays
about American history. All of these are described below.

My wife and I live in suburban Los Angeles—as did Sinclair.
We have two children, a daughter who is an editor in New
York, and a son who teaches middle-school English in California.